The swim back home seemed to stretch on for twenty thousand leagues, worsened by the fact Kyle had been met and escorted by his parents' personal dolphins, Neptune and Circe, when he was only a few feet out from shore. The dolphins were large and unusually somber for their breed, and their appearance meant his parents knew exactly where he was and what he'd been doing, and the ramifications hit Kyle like a blow to his still-bruised gut.

There was a good possibility he wouldn't be put to death for his numerous transgressions, but he wasn't sure he wouldn't prefer an execution to the tongue-lashing he would get from his mother. His father, at least, was the more calm and reasonable of the two, but he was also a ruthless stickler for obeying the rules and had enormous expectations of both his sons, especially with Kyle being the future heir to their kingdom of Atlantica.

Their castle under the sea was an immense and sprawling estate, host to a vast number of merfolk and sea life from all over the world. The dolphins guided him right through the middle of the courtyard like a prisoner on display, and for all Kyle knew, that's exactly what he was. Crowds of mer huddled together and whispered while staring at the lone prince, and Kyle could already gauge from their solemn and condemning countenance that the whole palace already knew exactly what he'd done, or at least had a good idea.

Kyle kept his head raised proudly and his gaze fixed firmly forward, even as he fought the urge to tremble and curl into a ball. The distance from the palace gates to the inner throne room was both too quick and never ending, and he swallowed nervously when the dolphins deposited him right at the base of his parents' towering thrones and left. The formal setting did not bode well for Kyle, although Ike's presence off to the side unknotted a sliver of tension in his shoulders. His brother looked small and pale, even though he managed a weak, supportive smile for Kyle which quickly disappeared when their father cleared his throat.

"You cannot imagine how deeply disappointed your mother and I are in you, Kyle," Gerald began, his voice the same steady calm right before he tore a defendant down piece by meticulous piece in court.

Kyle's fingers began to tremble, and he clenched them into fists at his sides as he looked up at his father and desperately implored, "I can explain! I didn't mean-"

"Because you and your brother have been taught since birth and told time and time again how dangerous humans are," Gerald continued as if Kyle hadn't spoken, staring past Kyle's shoulder like he couldn't stand to look at him at the moment. "You know how important it is that we are not seen. I don't think you realize the sort of position you have put your mother and I in, and the danger you brought to the entire kingdom by revealing our presence to the humans."

"But they would have died if I'd left them!"

"Then you should have let them die."

Sheila spoke for the first time since Kyle's arrival, and Kyle had never heard his mother sound so cold or spiteful. "They murdered your grandparents and a countless number of our people."

"Mer have killed people too! You used to eat them, for Poseidon's sake!"

"We only attacked them so we could survive, Kyle! And even after we banned the killing of humans, they still continue to come after, us even now! How can you defend them when you've been hurt by them yourself?" Sheila exclaimed, gesturing at Kyle.

Kyle glanced down at his wounded shoulder, thankfully no longer bleeding, where his mother pointed accusingly with a sharp red nail.

"That was an accident! It was from their ship after they'd been hit by lightning."

"A ship you had no business being near! The humans deserved their fate. Especially the one you risked your life to save from sharks, Kyle! What where you thinking?"

"I love him!" Kyle shouted defensively, and immediately clapped a hand over his mouth as Ike shot him a look of pure horror, which his parents echoed with their own shouts of outrage and disgust.

"What what WHAT?! How could you even think of consorting with one of those filthy humans? Your grandparents would be rolling over in their graves!" his mother exploded, and Gerald followed quickly on her tail.

"How could you disgrace your family and your entire race like this? You are a PRINCE! You should be ashamed!" Gerald berated when Sheila paused for breath, visibly gearing herself up for a truly epic reprimand.

"I don't know where we went wrong with you, Kyle! We have been far too lenient with your trips to the surface and treasure hunting for dangerous human creations. Don't think we don't know what you've been hiding up in your cave! Your fascination with the humans is unnatural and will end today. Do I make myself clear? It ends now!"

Ike moved forward to intervene on Kyle's behalf, but Kyle couldn't continue to hide behind the protection of his little brother any longer, and cut him off before Ike's pleas were fully formed.

"You're right. It does end today. The kingdom can't have a prince who is in love with a human, and I can't live without him. So I'm leaving. For good."

"Kyle, no!"

The cry came simultaneously from all three of his family members but Kyle tuned his parents out as he turned to catch the smaller mer who had thrown himself at Kyle, as if to bodily force him to stay. Kyle wrapped his arms and tail around Ike's sapphire blue one, squeezing him tightly as Ike buried his face into Kyle's chest, crying.

"You can't leave me here alone!" Ike sobbed, and the 'with them' at the end of that sentence went unspoken, but not unheard. Kyle was dropping a whole sea full of fish shit onto Ike's tiny shoulders, which he certainly didn't deserve, but what other choice did he have?

"I am so sorry, Ike. If there were any other way, I swear..."

"I know," Ike mumbled as he wiped tears and snot on Kyle's bare chest, which was no less than he deserved. "But where will you go? What will you do?"

Ike looked shaken at the prospect of Kyle being on his own in the sea. Kyle had to admit he didn't have a clue, although he didn't want to show any sign of wavering in front of his parents, who were still yelling and screaming in the background. He didn't belong with his own kind any longer, and he couldn't live on land, no matter how desperately he ached to feel sand under his...his feet?...and to be able to run into Eric's arms again.

His parents had always made ridiculous demands of him and Ike. It wasn't enough that they were expected to rule an entire kingdom, but Gerald and Sheila also insisted they have secondary vocations as well. Kyle was to follow in his father's wake and become a lawyer in order to excel at resolving disputes and upholding the law, while Ike was already being primed for his studies in healing and medicine, likely only so his parents had bragging rights for having a doctor and another lawyer in the royal family.

Or at least they would have until Kyle fucked up all of their careful planning.

"I don't know what I'll do, but I can't stay here," Kyle whispered into Ike's dark hair, and the other boy nodded sadly, still holding onto Kyle tight with the tip of his tail twitching in agitation.

Kyle supposed he could find a cave far, far away and steal or scavenge for food, but he couldn't tell an edible plant from a poisonous one and didn't know the first thing about hunting. All of their meals and needs were handled by the castle staff and servants so Ike and Kyle could focus all of their time on studying and training. Kyle had his own rooms at the castle, but he vastly preferred his small, dark cave with its human treasures and quiet solitude so he didn't lose his mind having to maintain his princely dignity or whatever every single minute. He knew he wouldn't even be able to return there to grab his things, lest his parents apprehend him and throw him in a cell for his own "protection."

"Listen," Ike said quietly, flicking a gaze in their parents' direction who were starting to look resolved in a way that didn't bode well for Kyle. "If you're really serious about being with your human-"

"Eric," Kyle corrected firmly, almost unable keep from tacking on a longing sigh to the name.

"Right. Eric. If you really want to see him again, there are...rumors. About the sea witch. I've heard merfolk say the witch could do things that would allow you to see him again, but it's really dangerous, Kyle."

"I don't care. Anything is better than staying here and forced to be someone I'm not. Our parents don't care if we're happy so long as we fit into their mold of being the perfect children!"

Ike looked up at him sadly with his grey-blue eyes, looking as trapped as Kyle felt. "I'm really going to miss you, big brother."

Kyle gave Ike a swift, hard hug, choking back tears. "I'm going to miss you so much, Ike..."

"Kyle! Are you even listening to us? Go to your room to wait for your punishment there, once we figure out what on earth to do with you. Circe and Neptune will escort you there."

The dolphins reappeared at Kyle's side at some silent command, nudging the two brothers apart. Kyle briefly considered making a break for the front doors, but he was exhausted from lack of sleep due to watching over Eric the entire night, and there was no way he would be able to out swim two dolphins who were bred for battle. Ike reached out for his hand and Kyle reached back on reflex until Neptune bodily inserted himself between them. Kyle's fingers closed around a thin metal object before pulling away, and he put the item into his satchel without looking at what Ike had passed to him while the dolphins were briefly obscuring them from view.

Kyle was hustled down a side corridor that branched off from the throne room, where they were joined by a handful of guards with bulging muscles and stern faces, as if Kyle were any sort of threat at all. They deposited him into his room rather than the dungeons, which he supposed he should be grateful for, but the castle was just a different kind of prison for him.

The lock to his door clicked closed behind him, only accessible from the outside so that he had no way of getting out. His room was pristine and expertly designed with large windows, a massive canopied bed, and gold gilding all over everything. The room completely lacked any personality or even more than a handful of Kyle's own possessions. He honestly couldn't think of the last time he'd actually slept there, but the draw of his bed was too irresistible, and Kyle was weighted down with exhaustion and misery.

He grabbed an overstuffed pillow and curled around the soft mass, aching all over for Eric and despairing that they would ever see each other again, before he fell into a deep sleep plagued with dreams of lightning, razor sharp teeth, and scared, brown eyes that closed and never opened again.

When Kyle woke, groggy and disoriented, he had no idea what time it was, since the castle was so far underwater that sunlight couldn't possibly penetrate the depths. The view outside of his window remained the same dark blue-black as it was every single day with only the occasional tropical fish swimming past to break up the monotony.

No one had come in to wake him for his hearing or trial, or whatever intimidating title his parents were putting on his punishment to ensure the populace knew the king and queen were taking Kyle's crimes very seriously and that he would be punished just like anyone else. Normally he would expect a slap on the wrist and extra lessons, and perhaps an additional guard or two to make certain he didn't venture where he didn't belong for a while. But Kyle had never fucked up so spectacularly before and his parents had been more furious than he'd ever seen, so likely all bets were off.

He wasn't sorry for saving Eric - how could he be? But he did regret that his little brother had been caught in the crossfire and left to clean up Kyle's mess and attempt to placate their parents. Ike wasn't even his real brother, or at least by blood, since the younger adopted mer was family in every other way that mattered, and more sane than the rest of them combined.

Thinking about Ike recalled the exchange they had made earlier before Neptune and Circe had herded him away, and Kyle lunged for his satchel at the foot of his bed, glad he had remembered to take it off before passing out, lest he inadvertently strangle himself in his sleep with the strap.

All he had in the clamshell bag were a few sand dollars, now pulverized - likely from the hit he'd taken from the first shark, if the mottling of bruises forming across his midsection was anything to go by - and odds and ends that he tended to collect on his journeys to the surface. There was also a metal stick about as long as his hand that had several smaller tines on the end of one side that Kyle definitely knew hadn't been in the bag before. But why on earth would Ike give him a dinglehopper of all things?

If Kyle's situation had been less serious, then he would have taken it as Ike's poor idea of a joke. Kyle used the dinglehopper as a comb whenever he did decide to brush his hair, since the widely spaced points were less likely to snag on his unmanageable curls. Kyle was about to throw the dinglehopper in a fit of frustration when he noticed the tines were curled oddly. The first and third tines were curled down into half-spirals with a single one remaining upright. Kyle stared at the utensil in confusion, until realization started to fall into place.

Years ago Kyle had smuggled a tiny wooden chest from a shipwreck before the sea witch had gotten wind of the sunken vessel and had come sniffing around the place. There were several larger chests, but much too heavy for the merprince to carry on his own, so Kyle had only taken the one. He had spent weeks poking and prodding at the lock, attempting to open the chest as he tried everything from bashing a rock against the lock to coaxing tiny fish into keyhole to maneuver the tumblers, but it was so rusted that they would not give.

It was Ike's idea to use a thin piece of metal to jimmy the lock, actually demonstrating the ability to pick a lock with suspicious ease. Ike claimed he'd never had interactions with humans before, but he had his own small trove of sketchy human-made artifacts that were particularly helpful for breaking into places or pulling off elaborate pranks.

Inside the chest was a breathtaking drawing of a human woman and a young boy, which regretfully dissolved within days, but Kyle never forgot how unbelievably talented the human artist was, and wished to see more renderings since art pieces for mer was usually limited into fine jewelry and accessories that Kyle had no use for, or mosaics made from colorful stones that couldn't possibly capture so much emotion and detail. There was also a compass that swung wildly in all directions until the waterlogged contraption finally stilled on a direction somewhere northwest, and hadn't moved since.

There were also a few coins and precious gems that Kyle had little use for when they had caverns dedicated to mounds and mounds of treasure, but the most valuable item of note hadn't been in the box itself, but Ike showing him the trick with the lock pick, which Kyle made him explain and demonstrate until Kyle was somewhat proficient himself, although he didn't have many occasions for breaking and entering after that day.

He wasted little time, hunching over the lock and working the thin metal sliver of the single raised tine into the keyhole. He was more rusty than he'd thought, and had to pause to force the tine straight after he'd shoved too hard with building impatience and desperation, bending the metal in the process. He let out a breath in a rush of bubbles when the tumbler finally gave and the lock clicked open. He bit his lip as he slowly opened the door, grateful for well-oiled hinges, and peeked out into the hallway, which was fortunately deserted.

Kyle's parents obviously didn't expect him to be able to break out of his rooms, or else the hall would have been swarmed with guards. Kyle quickly gathered his satchel, stuffing the bag with a handful of coins and a blunt knife, which was the only weapon he had at hand since making a trip to the armory would be impossible, but didn't know what else to bring on his escape. He was still-groggy from his nap, and utterly ravenous, but he didn't dare stop by the kitchens either. No, the only way he would be able to leave unseen was to just go and not look back, not even to say goodbye to Ike.

Kyle slipped through the halls and evaded passing mer with practiced ease until he was past the palace walls through the rarely-used passages he and Ike sometimes used on their illicit outings. He swam as fast as he could for the outer realms of Atlantica, not bothering to take winding routes or hiding when mer passed as he normally would when sneaking off to the surface. No one would dare to follow him once they figured out his destination, and he prayed for a good enough head start that even if someone decided to alert his parents, Kyle would be long gone by then.

Kyle's energy flagged quickly once the adrenaline that came with his escape faded, but he didn't stop even when he could no longer see the towering golden spires of the castle that Ike swore looked like giant dicks. Still, he never stopped moving, even when he began to weave with drunken exhaustion and didn't even know where he was going any longer.

He stumbled upon the sea witch's territory purely by chance after he ran headfirst into a bone-white face with ghastly hollows for eyes, and nearly swallowed his tongue as he bit back a scream that woke him right the hell up and made him take stock of his surroundings. The sea witch's cave was dark and foreboding with the entryway decorated with sickly, twisting seaweed that wrapped itself around the bones of human skeletons that guarded the entryway like sentinels. There were bone fragments from human, mer, and sea creatures alike that littered the barren grounds like the most unwelcoming and fucked up yard decorations he'd ever seen.

Kyle was definitely having second and third thoughts now that he was actually there, but he couldn't turn back now. He had no where else to go, not with the memory of Eric's peacefully sleeping face burned into his heart to galvanize him. Nothing stopped him as he slowly swam into the ominously dark mouth of the cave, feeling hair prickle at the base of his neck as if he were being watched. He was extra careful not to touch anything, not even the slick, mossy walls that glowed faintly from some sort of luminescent algae Kyle had never seen before.

Something moved in the water next to him, and darted away when he gave high-pitched shriek, which cut off abruptly when he heard a low growl and an annoyed voice call out, "You can quit lurking in my doorway like a fucking creeper and come in already."

Kyle was shaking from head to tail, but he braced himself and straightened with a confidence he didn't feel, not knowing what to expect or whether he would even leave the cave with his soul or sanity intact.

The sea witch was lounging upon a throne made of more human bones, stacked intricately and looking immensely uncomfortable, but the sea witch seemed perfectly at ease as he pierced Kyle with dark blue eyes that shone with a mysterious inner light. The claustrophobic entryway opened into a spacious cavern, filled with even more curious oddities than Kyle's own cave. Ghastly green light came from incandescent bubbles that appeared solid and stuck to the walls, making the shadows look stark and threatening.

The sea witch himself was fairly unremarkable with pale skin and dark hair, and actually didn't look much older than Kyle, except his lower half was that of a large octopus with long black tentacles and purple suckers draped artfully over the sides of the garish throne. He was holding a golden trident that looked like the overgrown dinglehopper Kyle had in his satchel, the spear ending in three wicked points that the merman seriously wished he had when he was busy fighting off sharks yesterday.

A pair of eels circled the witch slowly with their bright yellow eyes fixed unnervingly on Kyle.

"Kyle Broflovski," the sea witch purred, and the mer jumped, tucking his tail in close to him to hide the way it trembled.

"H-How do you know my name?" Kyle asked, his tone high and suspicious as he wrapped his arms defensively around his bare torso. His eyes darted around the cave, too afraid to look directly at the sea witch, lest he turn to stone or something.

"I know of everyone in that gods-forsaken castle of yours. Oh yes, little princeling," he bared his teeth in a dangerous grin at Kyle's startled look. "Your family and I have a long history. Your father banished me before you were even born when I refused to stop hunting humans. I can't help that they taste like chicken."

The sea witch's tongue trailed over his bottom lip as he looked Kyle up and down suggestively. "I doubt your parents taint their halls with utterances of my name any longer, but you can call me Craig."

Kyle didn't want to find out if Craig thought mermen tasted like those squawking land birds, too, from the way he was eyeing him. He wished he'd grabbed something more substantial than a tiny knife that wouldn't cut through seaweed before he'd left in such a hurry without even a game plan, but Craig had magic and Kyle doubted hurtling blunted metal at him would do more than piss him off.

"What did you come here for?" Craig asked shortly, apparently tired of small talk and getting right to the point.

Kyle hesitated, but he doubted Craig would have a worse reaction than his parents had. "There's this guy...a human? I really. I really want to see him again, and I can't go back home. My parents completely lost their shit, when they found out… So I'm, well, kind of banished too, I guess."

Technically Kyle had banished himself, but between being alone and free or with his family and essentially imprisoned for the rest of his life, he really didn't have much of a choice at all.

"Hmmm." Craig twirled the trident in his hand and stared at Kyle intently as the mer shifted uncomfortably under the other's scrutiny. "I would turn you into human yourself just for the look on your parents' faces."

"You can actually turn me human?" Kyle gasped in astonishment, hope and uncertainty warring in his voice.

"Yeeeep," Craig drawled, popping the last 'p' as he waved his tentacles lazily around him, occasionally brushing against one of the eels that darted in and out through the twisting appendages. There was a sleek, black eel that snapped up pesky little fish that ventured too close, and a lighter-colored electric eel that looked frazzled from its spontaneous discharges - which would more often than not end up zapping itself.

"But it's not for free," Craig continued, before Kyle could get his hopes up.

"I don't have much..." Kyle hedged, wracking his brain for anything he had that would be of any worth. His satchel felt painfully insubstantial with its handful of coins, and too many of his kind considered the humans' treasures he collected to be useless junk, even if he dared to return to his cave to grab anything. "I could maybe pay in installments?"

"Yeah, no," Craig snorted, a few of his tentacles making an obscene gesture at Kyle, before he added blandly, "But I'll take your left testicle as a down payment."

Kyle choked, startling the electric eel that had drifted too close to him, and he yelped when the creature gave them both a nasty shock, making his hair stand on end.

"Are you fucking serious?" Kyle exclaimed incredulously as he tried to shake off the painful prickling running along his scales from the eel's jolt and Craig's proclamation. He already felt his retracted balls trying to turn themselves inside out in self-preservation.

Craig looked at him blandly for so long that Kyle could almost feel a cold sweat prickle over his skin, if only for the fact he was already completely submerged in water, and couldn't possibly get any wetter.

"Nah, I've already got more balls than I know what to do with." Craig had such a relentless poker face that Kyle couldn't tell if the sea witch was joking or not.

"Then what?" Kyle snapped. He was starting to become irritated with the delays. Every passing second took him further and further away from the handsome man he had rescued from the shipwreck and left on a beach out there.

Despite all of the stories Kyle had heard about merfolk enchanting sailors and luring them to their deaths, Kyle himself been completely enthralled by Prince Eric and their brief time together. Kyle longed to hold and kiss him again, but instead had to flee back to the sea when he had heard other humans approaching before he'd even gotten the chance to tell the man his name, terrified and elated in equal measures.

Craig looked at him in consideration, his dark eyes unreadable, and then he snapped his fingers and a small, wooden chest appeared in his palm after a bright flare of golden light lit up from the trident.

"You open this box, you turn human. However, in exchange you will lose everything that makes you a merman - your fins, the sea, and...your voice."

Kyle gaped, temporarily struck speechless as if he'd already agreed to Craig's insane conditions. He could understand and had already prepared himself for the first two stipulations, however...

"But...but why my voice?" he protested once he could get his vocal chords to work again. "I'll have to talk to the prince so I can explain who I am!"

"A mer's voice is its most powerful weapon. You can ensorcell humans and cause them to run their vessels aground and throw themselves upon the reefs with a single note if you wanted to. You'll never know if this human truly loves you in return if he's enchanted by your voice."

Kyle swallowed hard, unable to refute the witch's logic, but hating the idea of being so helpless on dry land.

"Fine," he croaked after a long deliberation, feeling pale and sick at the idea, but determined to find the prince again no matter the cost. "I'll do it."

Craig held out the box towards Kyle, but when the merman reached to take it, a thick black tentacle shot out and latched onto his wrist painfully. "I almost forgot," Craig said over a yawn, propping his head onto his fist and staring down Kyle through half-lidded eyes, "the fine print. You have three days to fuck your human, or you turn into an eel."

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah. So, if you can't manage to get it up, you lose your voice forever and end up like Clyde here." Craig nodded his chin towards a listless eel at his shoulder that Kyle hadn't noticed earlier, noting that this eel did indeed only have one testicle.

Craig shrugged a shoulder at Kyle's dismayed expression. "We used to date."

Kyle tore his hand out of Craig's tentacle, feeling his skin crawl at the unexpectedly smooth and cool texture as the appendage slid over his wrist, releasing him. He clutched his hand against his chest and stared at Clyde, who looked balefully ahead at nothing. Uncertainty raced through his brain as Craig tapped his nails impatiently on a skull that was set into the arm of his gruesome chair.

"Tick tock," Craig intoned with a yawn, and Kyle's heart raced, looking between the box and Craig's eels, which were drifting closer and closer to him, making Kyle feel claustrophobic. He startled when something grazed his hip, and he glanced up at Craig when the tentacle brushed along his flank more than a little suggestively. "Unless you'd like to offer a different sort of payment?"

Kyle yelped and moved out of Craig's reach, heat suffusing his face as a flash of horror shot through him. He had no doubt Craig knew how to do extremely creative things with his tentacles and Kyle couldn't help a brief moment of curiosity tainted with a hint of arousal at the thought before it was quickly smothered. He'd never even been with another mer before, and now he was expected to have sex with a human in less than three days?

His situation felt even more hopeless by the minute, but when would he ever get the chance like this again?

With shaking hands, he reached out for the box and snatched it from Craig's open palm before the witch could grab him, although the other's tentacles remained floating placidly in the water, and Craig just looked bored now.

"Now get the fuck out of here before I change my mind and eat you, Broflovski."

Kyle didn't need to be told twice.